Winning peacefully

[Cheeseisgood]

Since the last patch, which supposedly reduced backstabbing, I've found winning peacefully to be nearly impossible. Having played several games, there seems to be a pattern to my play. I've been playing on "King".

- Everyone starts off on the same foot, expanding to 2-3 cities at the same time
- One Civ goes wild with expansion, jumping to 7 or 8 settled cities when everyone else is on 3-4
- That Civ goes on to engulf most of the continent, usually myself included, with a military power that's 4-5x as large as anyone else.
- I'm getting backstabbed more and more, by Civs that I have been "Friendly" with since the turn I met them, having had significant trade and research agreements.

I can understand the need to keep enough military force to stop people from seeing you're an easy target, but when one of the AI amasses a military force that's larger than every other Civ's combined, everyone becomes an easy target, and it feels as if the only way I can ensure my safety, is to attack first. I don't always want to have to go and take out a weaker Civ to ensure my safety, but this appears to be the only way.

Unfortunately, if I roll a warmonger Civ, steamrolling through the same enemies is stupidly easy, as I become the large Civ I was speaking of before, with significantly more military power than everyone else.

Is there some secret to a peaceful win that I'm missing? I'm getting repeatedly backstabbed and it's becoming clearer and clearer that domination is the only real way to win.

 

[ColinTH]

Since the last patch, which supposedly reduced backstabbing, I've found winning peacefully to be nearly impossible. Having played several games, there seems to be a pattern to my play. I've been playing on "King".

- Everyone starts off on the same foot, expanding to 2-3 cities at the same time
- One Civ goes wild with expansion, jumping to 7 or 8 settled cities when everyone else is on 3-4
- That Civ goes on to engulf most of the continent, usually myself included, with a military power that's 4-5x as large as anyone else.
- I'm getting backstabbed more and more, by Civs that I have been "Friendly" with since the turn I met them, having had significant trade and research agreements.

I can understand the need to keep enough military force to stop people from seeing you're an easy target, but when one of the AI amasses a military force that's larger than every other Civ's combined, everyone becomes an easy target, and it feels as if the only way I can ensure my safety, is to attack first. I don't always want to have to go and take out a weaker Civ to ensure my safety, but this appears to be the only way.

Unfortunately, if I roll a warmonger Civ, steamrolling through the same enemies is stupidly easy, as I become the large Civ I was speaking of before, with significantly more military power than everyone else.

Is there some secret to a peaceful win that I'm missing? I'm getting repeatedly backstabbed and it's becoming clearer and clearer that domination is the only real way to win.

I play on archipelago most of the time and that seems to solve most of the issues you have mentioned. I also enjoy playing ring games where everyone gets a similar sized landmass connected by land bridges.

 

[JWAT44]

yes the ai seems to be attacking/backstabbing at the same rate since the last patch and you have to take some people down a notch. you could always just weaken the big civ so that you are the big civ then be peaceful.

 

[Cheeseisgood]

Perhaps I need to experiment with maps more then. I've been playing Terra recently, and I'm beginning to feel that it's not my thing, considering you meet very few city states and are far too focused on defending the scrap of land you have to actually send ships over to the empty other continent.

 

[apocalypse105]

Well thats because this is a wargame diplomacy is just a option but it doenst exist in this game.


As long as this good AI typ is in place diplomacy will never exist never.


Only thing you should be angry about that it should be mentioned on the reviews as a wargame and in stores... Thats just lying to the customers

 

[puyo]

Well thats because this is a wargame diplomacy is just a option but it doenst exist in this game.


As long as this good AI typ is in place diplomacy will never exist never.


Only thing you should be angry about that it should be mentioned on the reviews as a wargame and in stores... Thats just lying to the customers

If it was a pure wargame, then it would be a terribly bad game since AI is so bad at fighting. It needs ten times your number of units to be able to survive...

At least we have the first halves of the games to explore and build an empire...

 

[apocalypse105]

If it was a pure wargame, then it would be a terribly bad game since AI is so bad at fighting. It needs ten times your number of units to be able to survive...

At least we have the first halves of the games to explore and build an empire...

The game is far from perfect i wonder if its ever gonne be perfect. I olso dont like it i played it once it once this month i quit again just of this stupid diplomacy


And for the combat AI .Most games never have been able to make a good combat AI look at advance wars AI allways gets bonusses more funds or more units in campaign but stil make some stupid moves on combat however it sometimes makes good moves put his range units behind..

I have seen the AI actually make some good moves like shooting with the chocko nu and moving it a cross a river as result if my knight atacks it i get seriously damage... On the other hand it makes more stupid moves buts it a AI...

Human player will allways or about AI beeing to simple on combat because human player can handel combat better...

 

[puyo]

The huge amount of bonuses at high difficulty just shows how bad the AI is...
I understand that the comp needs bonuses to compete with humans but in this game they are just ridiculously massive at high difficulty.
Winning peacefully at deity is just abusing the AIs (massive RA for example) because your handicap is so huge that it's like you just don't play the same game as them, you don't follow the same rules.

 

[jtb1127]

I really don't think that the artificial unintelligence will be fixed by small patches. It seems to be a harder game mechanic that is not easily mopped up.

 

[Becomedeath]

I've seen this in a few games. I found that simply maintaining a high military strength although not actually picking a fight seemed to calm some of the more hostile civs down a bit.

 

[apocalypse105]

I've seen this in a few games. I found that simply maintaining a high military strength although not actually picking a fight seemed to calm some of the more hostile civs down a bit.

Oly problem is if you want a peacefull game on a higher diffiits impossible because of their bonusses they will allways have a hihger military and willl always declare because they make their decissions on numbers

 

[FelixTheGreat]

If I want to win peacefully, I've found that island maps are usually a good option. It makes it a lot easier, and I'm not good enough to do it on pangea

 

[Becomedeath]

Oly problem is if you want a peacefull game on a higher diffiits impossible because of their bonusses they will allways have a hihger military and willl always declare because they make their decissions on numbers

But a peaceful game doesn't necessarily mean never having any military conflict. I've had completely peaceful games with a few border skirmishes here and there but no serious war, simply by keeping the numbers high and staying allied with a few city well chosen city states.

I find that having loads of ranged units protecting cities and then a few fast units to clean up the mess can prevent any significant war effort by the AI. Certainly enough to ensure that their assaults are nusiances rather than concerns.

But if you mean a "peaceful" game in that you have a civilisation that's lasted 6000 years and never had a war with anyone....dream on.

 

[Baleur]

The problem is that it takes such a ridiculous time to build anything, that if you waste 100 turns on building a small army to prevent agression from others, that is 100 turns you just wasted that could be used to build libraries, granaries or settlers, generally improving your civilization.

It's like, to avoid war you have to waste time building army units you never intend to use anyway.
There is simply no way to play it any other way than as a warmongering maniac, because if you try you waste turns and production that you'll never get back.

 

[Becomedeath]

It's like, to avoid war you have to waste time building army units you never intend to use anyway.
There is simply no way to play it any other way than as a warmongering maniac, because if you try you waste turns and production that you'll never get back.

So basically you want to have your civilisation completely undefended and not have the AI politely leave you alone and then reserve the right to complain that the AI is rubbish and doesn't even try to win...

I played a game yesterday where I was trading with the Romans to get dye. I had to renew the agreement and they decided that a straight swap for silver wasn't good enough and that the wanted some spices as well.

Why am I trading with them when I can go and destroy their puny civilisation and take the dyes myself? Good point. Army, go visit Rome. So I made the lousy trade deal to keep my own Civ happy while I mobilised my fleet of angry dudes.

Why is it so obscure that the AI should act the same way? You have something they want, you have little or no defense, they come along to help themselves.

EDIT - I'm not saying you have to play an offensive game, but to expect the AI to leave you alone and never bother you so you don't have to build even a rudamentary defensive force seems a little short sighted to me.

 

[Capt Ajax]

I've only had ONE truely peaceful victorious game. I was playing Egypt on a HUGE island map with high water level and won a marathon game with only 4 cities. I licked out and got marble next to my first city, then eventually won a cultural victory. I never made friends with a warmonger and did not join any pacts. This was pre-patch...

IT WAS THE MOST BORING GAME I EVER PLAYED!


Now I'm in a game as the Indians trying to win a cultural vistory with 3 cities on a standard tera map. I've been attacked by the Azatecs once, and the Ottomans 3 times....and eventually helped the Egyptions wipe them out. I've only got 3 more policies to go before the Utopia Project......so we will see if I can get that achievment!!

Oh, and I'm playing on King level...

 

[jbevermore]

The real question is "what defines a peaceful win?"

If the answer is "any win that doesn't involve straight up conquest" then yes, it's very possible and in fact common.

If the answer is "I want to only build without having these bullies come attack my seven city empire defended only by a pair of archers" then no, it's just not going to happen. Civ may not be a straight up wargame, but war is indeed a serious part of it, you're just not going to succeed without fighting at some point.

 

[puyo]

Winning peacefully depends on many factors. You can't decide in advance that this or that game will be a peaceful game. It depends on who are your neighboors and the starting distance, on your starting location (if you need to expand or not), if you have CS between you and other civs, etc... so anyway a peaceful victory shouldn't be a goal by itself before you start your game...

But the huge bonuses to the comp, the bad diplo system and the fact that the devs seem to have thought that the game would be too easy (abusable...) without the human being regularly attacked, lead to peaceful games uncommon.

 

[wcbarney]

I used to be a total warmonger, even to the point of disabling the other victory conditions. I would always go for Total World Conquest (TWC) -- i.e., conquer each civ entirely, one after another, all their cities, until I would own the entire world & have a score upwards of 10,000. But, those were the good old days when happiness was not such a huge issue. Now I just settle for science, cultural or diplo wins, building a big enough army & fighting enough wars to keep the real monsters off my back.

I've found that you can remain pretty peaceful by choosing the "Small Continents" map from the advanced set-up screen. Sometimes you are there alone, with room for 4-5 cities; other times you will have an unwelcome neighbor that you will have to get rid of sooner or later. (I almost always play at the Emperor level -- challenging enough for me).

 

[Melchizedek]

I recently won a spaceship victory with Korea, on Emperor, without fighting a single war. It was a peculiar game, I spawned right next to Catherine and we wound up sharing about 8 cities worth of territory amicably for 6000 odd years! It became apparent that she had settled on a culture strategy, and didn't really want to take over my land. We were separated from Rome, Ottoman and Iroquois by an isthmus and a handfull of city states, and Alex went nuts taking over the other continent, but still couldn't keep up with my science rate.

As I got closer to the science victory, I built up a large military in anticipation of being attacked. That probably had something to do with keeping the peace.